


All these quiet hours

by ShadowSpires



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, I'm generally a Mace/Ponds kinda gal, Slice of Life, Soft TM, but I think this particular one is safely marked as Gen since it's mostly just Soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:40:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24363700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowSpires/pseuds/ShadowSpires
Summary: Being the Master of the Order is a big job, even without also being a General of the Grand Army of the Republic. Luckily, Mace has support in the form of his Commander.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 99





	All these quiet hours

**Author's Note:**

> For BlackKat's Mace Windu Appreciation Day, since Mace doesn't get nearly enough love.

A deeply resigned sigh draws Mace’s attention up from the data-pads littering his desk, and his vision actually wavers a bit as his eyes try to focus more than two feet away from his face for the first time in — ah. Far more than a single shift if the expression he can read in the tilt of Ponds’ shoulders are anything to go by.

Mace’s neck spasms uncomfortably, and he leans back in his chair with a tired sigh of his own, bringing a hand up to massage the aching muscle. 

He desperately needs to make time to do some katas. Get himself moving, feel the Force flow with him. But there is just so much for the Master of the Order to do on a normal day. Add in everything a General of the Galactic Army of the Republic…

He hasn’t been able to call Obi-Wan out on his stim-usage for months without being a hypocrite. 

“Is this a rescue mission?” Mace asks, deep voice wry and not even pretending not to know why Ponds is here, as he cracks a small smile Skywalker would never believe him capable of at his Commander. “Or an intervention?”

Ponds shakes his head, an answering smile the tilt of his bucket as he gestures with the tray he’s holding, several covered dishes stacked cleverly to hold at least twice as much as it was designed to.

“Resupply and reinforcements,” Ponds counters, and the military terms shouldn’t sound so easy in Mace’s ears, but they do, the meaning lingering behind them soothing. “The mess told me it’s been at least 9 hours since you last sent for food, General.”

“We call it the commissary, here,” Mace says mildly, instead of remarking that ‘sent for food’ was a new and unique way of saying ‘Master Lona brought him enough to feed three and stood over him until he ate it all,’ as he obligingly clears off a space on his desk, slightly vindictively shoving the missive from the Chancellor deeper into the pile. He’ll have to get to it eventually, of course, but for now it can languish between requests for more socks for the GAR, and the plea for diplomatic intervention that was the Jedi’s staple before the War, but Mace was now scrambling to figure out if they could spare someone for it. They were stretched so thin. There were a few Jedi on injury leave who might be able to be reassigned as they recovered. Aten was down two broken arms and was off the battlefields until they healed, but if he sent her squad with her, maybe she could manage well enough at diplomacy, even if — 

Ponds clears his throat gently, as he sets the tray down.

Mace sighs and drags his attention back to the moment with another wry little twist of his lips. Ponds is watching him with fond in his posture. 

“You trying to give me an edge up on Cody the next time we all get together?” Ponds asks, a crooked grin in his voice.

Mace raises a brow, unimpressed. 

“I,” he says, dry as dust, “Am no where near as bad as Obi-Wan.”

Ponds makes a skeptical little sound as he leans unselfconsciously into Mace’s personal space to dig through his drawer for — ah. 

Mace sighs and accepts the glasses Ponds hands over with only a trace of chagrin for forgetting about them. He doesn’t take them out into the field, doesn’t use them around the men, or in the council chamber. Doesn’t even really need them, except for — except for times exactly like this, where he’s got too much work and not enough hours, and the screens start to make his eyes burn. 

It’s not that he thinks they are a weakness. It’s that others might, and as not just a Jedi but the Master of the Order, Mace has an image and a reputation that has more than his personal comfort riding upon it.

With only Ponds as witness, however, he slides them onto his nose, and immediately can feel some of the strain and budding headache ease.

“You brought up Kenobi, not me,” Ponds comments blandly as he drags the chair Mace keeps for infrequent visitors right up to the desk and around it until they’re sitting side-by-side. He casually pops the seals on his helmet, pulling it off and hooking it over the corner of the chair, grabbing half of Mace’s stack of data-pads and beginning to sort them. “But as long as you don’t start yeeting your lightsaber across the battlefield,” Mace mouths the word ‘ _yeeting_ ’ with deep skepticism, but only sighs at the appropriation of his paperwork as his stomach growls at the scents creeping out from under the covers on the plates. “Often enough that I have to mod a clip on my belt for it, or take to constructing battle-plans that consist solely of an order to follow you, I’ll probably still have to chip in for Cody or Rex’s drinks.”

“Noted,” is Mace’s mild comment, so mild that Ponds actually looks up at him suspiciously, eyes narrow.

“Very funny, sir” he grouses with a roll of his eyes, and Mace cracks another genuine sliver of a smile. It never fails to astonish him, the way that Ponds can so accurately read when he’s joking when even long-time friends still stumble over it occasionally. He’s on par with Depa at it, and it’s a quiet ache that his Commander and his Padawan have never had a chance to meet. Maybe at some point in this war, no matter that his and Depa’s specialties often have them at different ends of the galaxy.

…Maybe even _After_.

Then he can lament them ever meeting as they stand next to each other while they give him that same fondly exasperated look.

Mace shakes his head in response to the version he’s receiving right now, but does uncover the first of the plates as Ponds grabs Mace’s other pile of pads, chucking a third of them pile them unerringly onto the low table Mace hadn’t yet buried. Mace knows without checking that every one of those things will be able to wait, or be passed on without guilt to others, and that Ponds won’t even think to reach for the stack by Mace’s elbow where he has put the pads that contain the truly classified information, even if they are otherwise unmarked.

Mace eats slowly, feeling the tension drain slowly away from him at the soft sounds of Ponds making his way through the pads he’s claimed as his own, the snorts of derision at some of the more ridiculous requests, a deeply exasperated sigh that Mace know means he’s hit something originating out of the 212th or 501st, the quiet determination and steadiness radiating from him, washing through the Force around them.

When Mace finishes his portion and sets the tray aside for Ponds to pick at later, his Commander always more of a snacker than one predisposed to full meals, he gets an approving glance, and a much smaller stack of pads handed back to him. 

“You get to deal with the Chancellor,” Ponds says, utterly shamelessly throwing Mace under that particular speeder and making it clear what he thinks of the driver, and Mace should scold him for the borderline insubordination, but — why? It’s not like Mace doesn’t agree.

“Your generosity is truly a credit to you and your _vode_ ,” Mace tells him in his best staid Jedi Councilor voice, and when Ponds cracks with startled, delighted laughter Mace’s eyes crinkle, and he returns to his work with his Commander at his side, and a lighter heart.


End file.
